Half of wealthy Gen Zers and millennials admit to ‘digital shoplifting,’ rationalizing it with inflation and influencer hacks

For many Americans, it feels almost too easy to dupe retailers into getting their money back for online purchases they’ve made. Say you’ve bought that new expensive sweater or a pair of headphones, but you don’t want to shoulder the cost. You just submit a claim to the retailer that you never received the package or you didn’t order it in the first place.

But that’s called digital shoplifting—and about half of Gen Zers and millennials who earn more than $100,000 per year admit to doing so in the past year, according to Socure . The antifraud tech company surveyed 2,000 Americans between Dec. 6 and Dec. 13, 2024 and found digital shoplifting is more rampant than most people knew.

As for the connection between wealthier shoppers and a higher propensity to commit digital shoplifting, Socure’s head of product management for fraud and identity solutions, Ori Snir, told Fortune he suspects “there might be a link between those who better understand bank and merchant obligations to those that are taking advantage of them.”

Digital shoplifting can include claiming a package was never delivered or was stolen, disputing credit card charges made by the merchant, or saying the product was never intentionally bought in the first place. Shoppers justify these actions with struggles against inflation, seeing “hacks” from social media influencers on how to get money back for purchases, and the perceived leniency of merchants to issue refunds.

One TikTok influencer with nearly 3 million followers detailed how to get refunded for an Amazon Prime purchase claiming the order was delayed.

“I know your chat support is way more lenient when it comes to helping customers,” @faaresq said in the video, and showed a chat with an Amazon agent issuing a refund for the item. “And 99% of the time when the package arrives, they won’t even ask you to send it back.”

Although young, wealthy Americans were the most likely perpetrators, people across all generations admitted to “first-party fraud,” or when consumers dispute charges with their credit card company and merchant in order to get the money back for a product they actually bought and received.

Digital shoplifting is likely rampant because there aren’t severe consequences for those who commit it, Snir said.

“The best-case scenario is that the person goes unpunished and gets away with it entirely, which often leads them to do it again,” Snir said. “Another potential outcome is that their dispute gets denied and they ultimately still have to pay for their purchase.”